‘Tuberculosis kills 1.3m globally’

The Chief Medical Director of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), Prof. Etete Peters, said yesterday over 1.3 million people have died from tuberculosis-related diseases worldwide in the last two years.

Prof. Peters spoke in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, at the World Tuberculosis Day.

He explained that in 2012, there were an estimated 8.6 million new cases with over 95 per cent of death in low and middle income countries.

According to him, not less than one third of people living with HIV worldwide in the last two years were infected with TB bacteria.

Peters, who is the president of the Nigeria Thoracic Society, said the tuberculosis burden in Nigeria was further compounded by the high HIV/AIDS prevalence of 4.6 per cent.

He explained that the Federal Government developed a strategy to maximise collaboration between HIV and tuberculosis programmes and instituted a policy whereby tuberculosis patients were screened for HIV and HIV-positive patients screened for tuberculosis.

With this policy, Peters said 58,942 tuberculosis patients (65.2 per cent registered in 2008) were screened for HIV last year, of which 14,698 (24.94 per cent) were found to be HIV-positive.

Prof. Peters explained that poor communities and vulnerable groups are mostly affected by the disease.

He stated that Nigeria is ranked 10th among the 22 high border TB countries in the world and the diseases is also among the top 3 causes of death among women in the country.

‘Leave Itsekiri people alone’

By Musa Odoshimokhe

An Itsekiri leader, Chief Ritalori Ogbebor, has urged the delegates of the national conference to call on the Egbema Radical Group, made up of the Ijaws, to desist from killing the Itsekiri people.

At a briefing in lagos yesterday, Ogbebor bemoaned the fate of the Itsekiri, who have been under attack since the group blew up a pipeline in Idibi community on Robin creek.

She said: “This same group threatened and killed so many Itsekiri at Ajameta, Gbokoda, Tubu, and Udo in Olero creek. This is the state of menace, threat and violence which the Itsekiri go through every day.”

Ogbebor recalled that the Itsekiri/Ijaw crisis has become a recurring decimal in the crises rocking the country, noting that the Boko Haram insurgency started in similar fashion but the lack of attention to address the challenge has made it a monster for the country.

“This is how the previous Warri crisis started and hence I am appealing to members of the national conference to address this matter because the delegates are eminent Nigerians.

“We also want to ask the Ijaws, what do they want? It is mind boggling that the Ijaws who undoubtedly, unappreciative of God’s mercy and blessing that have enable them to rise to meteoric fame by unleashing genocidal war against Itsekiris have continue to their daily desire to wipe out the Itsekiri ethnic nationality,” she said.